Attacking the F-22 with Yellow Journalism

Is it fair to criticize high dollar weapons systems? Yes, if you can tell the story correctly. In the case of the F-22, some news sources have to resort to yellow journalism in order to sell headlines.

Recently an article in the Washington Post made a big splash against the F-22 using deception, gross misstatements and innuendo. It was a big hit. Many gobbled up the nonsense wholesale. What was wrong with it? While it made some good points—the defense establishment rarely has a handle on figuring out big dollar programs—it went over the top by stating some things that just were not true.

For instance, it portrays the F-22 as a maintenance pig. The Post stated that maintenance on the F-22 was getting more expensive and troublesome with time when in fact the opposite is true.

What the Post really missed is that maintenance USAF wide is having challenges and not just one specific airframe. In the past several years with shortages of funds for just about everything, even simple to maintain F-16s have lost up to 10 percent of their mission capable (MC) rates. If one is going to only criticize one USAF airframe they are missing the big picture. Almost all USAF airframes have gone down in MC rates and not just due to age.

Just a few years ago the B-1 bomber was taking huge criticism for only being able to deliver 51 percent MC rate. The fact of the matter was that the pauper USAF was only funding 49 percent of the aircraft systems required maintenance plan to keep it healthy. Dedicated maintenance personnel squeezed out an additional 2 percent through just plain hard work.

Looking at recent history of the F-22 shows a different story than that painted by the Post. Around the 2005-6, the F-22 upgrade schedule was on track. This effort was thrown into disarray when the needs of the Afghanistan and Iraq war—at over $10-13 billion per month— pulled scheduled funds from the F-22 program.

The F-22 reached initial operating capability (IOC) in 2005. In the years 2006-2008, maintenance metrics from real live USAF squadrons came in. This is where real life at the squadron level validates (or disproves) the optimistic planning from previous years of aircraft development. What was shown is that the aircraft was spending a lot of time at the unit level in the low observable (L.O.) maintenance hanger. Consider that the aircraft was designed to be maintenance friendly where only 5 percent of maintenance actions required refurbishment of the low observable components on the F-22. In the end it wasn’t any kind of disaster but a learning curve. It took a while for airmen and NCO’s —the enlisted maintenance force that makes or breaks a flying unit—to get maintenance experience on this new kind of aircraft That process includes everything from training, keeping methods that work, throwing out ones that don’t and filtering all of that into a reliable form of tribal knowledge.

Fast forward to where in one deployment, an F-22 unit put up all of their scheduled missions (350 sorties) for a stunning 100 percent MC rate. This means that the F-22 community has risen to the challenge and put up MC rates that match or exceed current “legacy” aircraft in deployments. Of course none of this was mentioned in the Washington Post article.

More? Maintenance Supers (the lead maintenance NCO in a unit) will tell you a lot of things that are hassle-free with the jet. For example the Pratt and Whitney F-119 motors don’t require a lot of extra work. Still More? The F-22 community has won sustainment awards for its maintenance processes. Of interest is that the methods of logistics and sustainment used in the program are a baseline for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. While the F-35 has a long way to go to prove itself, it is designed so that only 1-2 percent of maintenance processes require L.O. refurbishment. No matter. When the F-22 is out of production, guess what the yellow journalism crowd will pick on next?

We went to an air show here in Marietta Georgia where they make them. While we were on the bus we were watching out the window, several aircraft fly-bys. F-15, F-18, some larger planes and props including an old P-51 mustang.

And the F-16’s, always cool and later we saw the thunderbirds, as good as I’ve ever seen them and I’ve been watching them for over 40 years now.

But the F-22 was special. It made a few low passes and on the final pass it went nose up, and literally just hovered in the air awhile like a helicopter in the center of the runway. Not quite perpendicular but pretty close.

Interestingly a prop stunt plane did this later and to a certain extent the t-birds incorporated this stunt into their program, which I had not ever seen before.

But anyway, none of the other aircraft were able to impressively hang in the air and virtually not move at all, like the raptor did.

It literally flew by, went nose up and stood on it’s tail with the engines, oh I’d guess at about 1/2 throttle, and literally stopped in mid-air for a few minutes, not seconds, but minutes as if it were frozen in a climb but not climbing, not falling, not going left or fight, up down sideways...nothing...just some engine power, not full but just enough to support it from moving.

As I said the other aircraft attempted this but came nowhere near as close, they had to be moving forward at least a little bit or would otherwise lose altitude and simply fall out of the sky.

Not so for the F-22. It was as if an unseen force was holding it nose up by a string like a giant toy. The nozzles you speak of are called thrust vectoring, where the engine thrust is pointed in a way that can control flight in ways not before seen.

In fact, when the raptor came out of this stunt, it merely moved forward, not up as you’d expect, but as though it was flying straight ahead as though pushed through the air standing oin it’s tail, again with the nose pointed to the sky and tail toward the ground, not climbing but advancing down the runway at the same altitude.

People were looking at each other and I told my wife, I did not know it could do that! The kids were amazed and it was an overall great experience and a blast!

Just the avionics alone are a leap ahead of the technology of anything (and everything) else out there.

Of course all the other things it did were very impressive, rolls, climbs, etc. but that stunt alone was like nothing I’ve ever seen. I was in the Air Force, a medic for 10 years so I was fortunate enough to provide 9-11 service in an ambulance and got some front row seats as you might imagine hanging out in otherwise restricted areas etc. and I’ve seen the t-birds, blue angels, the canadian, british and a couple of other teams and this F-22 is really something quite special!

The F-15’s, 16’s and 18’s are like edsels from the 50’s and the raptor would be like a 2009 corvette, and that’s being very generous to the edsels.

The argument that the maintenance or whatever is expensive, well compare that to the maintenance of a fleet of 20
F-16’s which is about how many it would probably take to shoot one of these down and then what?

So, OF COURSE liberals are out to kill it.

and literally just hovered in the air awhile like a helicopter in the center of the runway.

Amazing. I went to air shows when I was young, loved every minute.

Each year at Mather AFB (closed) shows take place where to get there you have to ride a shuttle (so many want to attend). I'd like to go to the next one as I've seen some of the warm-ups taking place as I work near the former base on certain days.

The first time I realized what was going on (practices) I barely got anything done. I think it was the Thunderbirds and they buzzed me several times doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I remember one jet that flew flat and straight at me (not too high) with burners on, then off, it accelerated so quickly and silently, it seemed like it'd been shot out of a slingshot. I watched others perform zig-zags that I didn't know were possible. The best was when all the jets flew up and splayed out like flower petals in each direction.

If I remember, this show takes place in the fall when our weather is a little un-predictable. There were some large, billowy clouds and winds were gusting a bit and changing directions. I wasn't sure they'd put on the show that weekend, but they did.

It would be neat to see an F-22 as you described. I love jets (built many models as a kid) and from others, know it's not easy to fly (in) these things. A local DJ got to ride on one- followed all the prep advice- but still hurled a few times over San Francisco. His description of that ride was very revealing.

Remember how the M1 tank was a waste of money, how it couldn't shoot straight, etc., according to the freaking idiots in the media back in the early 1980’s. Oh boy, did they ever get that one wrong. The memo that they didn't work didn't make it over to Iraq in the first gulf war where the M1’s took out the advanced Soviet-supplied tanks like a shooting gallery game.

Back when I was in engineering school the class catalog stated that no credit, not even for the total credit hours (that could include PE, pottery, etc.) would be granted for journalism courses. Now I know why. Those journalists are the stupidest things on two legs. They hoot and holler when a system tested to failure, fails. Well, that is apt to happen when things are tested to failure. How they hell do these people find their way to work in the morning, what with all those road signs and such?

And let me get this straight, "stimulus" money for condom education programs, rat research, etc., but not for the defense industy that actually empolyees people that actually make a durable good that could deter enemy attack? If the government wants to make work then make arms.

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